The Price of Ignorance
by Steavatron
Summary: Ignorance is not an excuse to break the Laws of Konoha. Naruto learns this the hard way after being banished from the Leaf for stealing the Forbidden Scroll of Seals.
1. Chapter 1

**AN: I've been reading stories on this site for close to a year now. I thought I'd take a crack at writing something. Let me know what you think.**

Naruto stood in the Hokage's office, posture tense and wary. The old man hadn't seemed very cheerful when he and Iruka-sensei were found in that clearing. He actually looked a lot older than the young blond had ever remembered seeing him.

He rocked back and forth on the balls of his feet as the old man continued to sit and puff away on his pipe with an air of defeat around him. Their eyes met and the aged Hokage released a weary sigh. His eyes softened as he addressed the boy. "Naruto…" He began, only to trail off tiredly. ' _I can't believe I have to do this to you. Your life has been hard enough already_.' Pushing away the urge to sigh once more, he shook his head and affirmed his resolve. ' _No backing out now, I just hope that one day you can forgive me for this_.'

He spoke again, this time with a grim acceptance in his tone. "The scroll you took was the Forbidden Scroll of Seals. It contains hundreds of kinjutsus that were considered impractical and unsuitable for use by Konoha shinobi. In the hands of our enemies it exposes all our glaring weaknesses. For example, the kage bunshin technique you learned is in there because most people don't have the chakra capacity or the mental fortitude to make use of the clones in any meaningful way. Any half decent shinobi would be able to deduce exactly how limited we are in terms of average chakra capacity and they'd be able to come up with a slew of offensive strategies that would be catastrophic for us." He saw the boy's eyes widen in alarm and his whole body tense up.

"You know I never meant to do that, jii-chan. Mizuki-teme trick-" The blonde's mouth clicked shut when the Hokage raised his hand for him to stop.

"I know what happened, Naruto, but ignorance of the law is no excuse. Theft of that scroll is regarded as high treason, no matter the circumstances."

"But… but…." the boy protested weakly, the grim acceptance in the Hokage's voice told him wasn't something he could change. "Can't you…..do something, old man? You know….. You're the Hokage…."Naruto trailed off when he saw the pained look on his surrogate grandfather's face. He swallowed loudly and nodded for the man seated across from him to continue.

"Now the usual punishment for treason is death," there was a sharp intake of breath and the boy's eyes widened to saucers and glistened with unshed tears. "But I've been able to limit it to a simple banishment."

The young jinchuuriki's head hung as he he tried to hide the tears falling from his eyes. His fists clenched painfully by his sides. His small shoulders rose as he sucked in a deep breath, visibly restraining himself from yelling at the Hokage. His torso shrunk again as he released the breath through clenched teeth. ' _So that's it? My dream to be Hokage, my dream to be acknowledged, all the suffering I went through. Was it all for nothing?_ ' His head snapped back up to face the Hokage, mouth open and ready to protest, but the words died on his lips. ' _What exactly would be the point?...I mean... Am I really gonna fight this just so I can be around people who've spent everyday of my life trying to pretend I don't exist? Do I really want to?_ '

He collected himself and tried to banish these treacherous thoughts trying to tear him away from his dreams, but he couldn't force them out of his head. The fact that he'd been trying to earn some respect and acknowledgement for all his life and it seemed like Konoha would never allow him to catch a break. ' _I'm pretty much back at square one._ ' He then realised that if this was something the Hokage couldn't fix, then the answer wasn't going to be falling into his lap anytime soon. He closed his eyes and breathed in deeply, held the air in his lungs for a second, and then let out another noisy breath.

When his eyes snapped open, there was a kaleidoscope of emotion in them, but his face morphed into a cold mask. "Will there be anything else, Hokage-sama?" He intoned respectfully. He saw Sarutobi wince at the cold indifference he was treating him with but couldn't be bothered to feel bad about it.

"You will be allowed two hours to pack your things and say any farewells. Then, you will be escorted out of the village by the ANBU." The boy nodded and turned to leave. ' _I wish I could let him know I can't help him because of all these ANBU officers here. I can't show a person charged with treason any degree of kindness. Even these two hours I'm giving him are pushing it._ ' When he was out the door, the Hokage sighed and shook his head. ' _Of all my failings, this is the biggest one. That fallen student of mine doesn't even come close._ '

Outside the office, Naruto dragged his feet as he walked to his apartment. There was no rush. He didn't have much to pack anyway. As he passed people on the road, their shock at his lack of energy didn't even register to him, lost in his thoughts as he was. ' _After all this time, this it it?_ ' He questioned, struggling to make sense of how much his life had changed in the past few hours. His feet guided him through the streets and between people to his home.

After unlocking the door, he pushed the old, wooden thing open, but stood in the entryway taking his last look at the space he had called home for most of his life. He sighed heavily as he trudged inside, not bothering to shut the door behind him. He placed his large, worn satchel on the table and proceeded to stuff his fuuton and a couple of changes of clothes in it. He smiled softly as he slipped in his froggy nightcap. He decided to pack all his cups of ramen into his bag and have his last meal at Ichiraku's instead. Once that was all done, he made sure he had all his kunai and shuriken safely stashed on his weapon pouch and carefully took stock of all his other ninja supplies.

Taking one last look around the small apartment, he spotted his plant sitting on the window sill. He took the time to water it carefully, and then placed it outside, next to his door. He hoped someone might come and pick it up and take care of it, but he didn't really expect that to happen. He locked the door and left the key behind as he adjusted his pack and started making his way to his favorite place in the whole village.

A few minutes later, he was standing atop the Fourth Hokage's head as he looked over the village he had sworn to protect. He watched as people went about their business, oblivious of his gaze. No one seemed to even be affected in the slightest by his absence. It tore at his heart to see his existence so totally ignored. His disappearance seemed to have affected no one. He shook his head and checked the time.

One hour remained until he had to leave.

He decided that he didn't want to spend any more time in the village anyway and started to make his way down to the ramen stand. On his way, he started to think about who would actually be affected by his banishment. ' _Ino? Ami and her friends? Nah. They would be glad that their chances to be on a team with the teme would be better. Kiba? Shikamaru? Chouji? Nah. We weren't really friends. We only got together to ditch class. How about the teme? Nope. He probably wouldn't even look up from his brooding long enough to notice. How about that weird blue haired girl? I've never seen her going nuts over Sasuke… But she hasn't exactly tried to talk to me either… I guess she wouldn't be affected either. The old man? Pfft. Yeah right. He's the Hokage. If he wanted me to stay, no one could say anything to him. His word is law. I guess I was wrong about him caring all this time. Well at least I know the Ichirakus will miss me… and so will Iruka-sensei…. At least I think they will. I'm not just another customer or another student to them am I?…. I hope not._ '

His heart fell when he realised that he didn't have one person whose response he could be certain about. He was also discouraged because he knew exactly how Sakura-chan would respond. ' _She'd be ecstatic that she doesn't have to deal with 'Naruto-baka' anymore.'_ He wanted to defend her, wanted to say that he knew she'd come to his aid as readily and as passionately as when she chases Sasuke but he couldn't lie to himself anymore. He'd been confident before, feeling that he was making steady progress in the thawing of the villagers' hearts, but today that notion was banished from his mind. He had acknowledged that he needed to stop pretending everything was okay. He needed to look at all the facts and take them as they are, not how he wants them to be.

He shook his head when he noticed that he'd already arrived at the ramen stand. He froze when he remembered that a few nights ago he'd been here, bragging to Iruka-sensei that he'd pass the test. He just knew that the old man would ask him how it went and Ayame would want to know too. He turned into an alley way and made his way to the gate, content to let their last memory of him be a happy one.

He arrived at the gate a few minutes later and saw the Third standing off to the side with a squad of ANBU. ' _Has he been waiting here the whole time? No that would be stupid…then how did he…_ ' His eyes widened as he found the answer. ' _He had people watching me. And I didn't notice. That's not good…if I'm gonna be on my own, I need to be able to tell when I'm being watched._ ' He made a mental note to learn something that would always keep him aware of his surroundings.

He didn't spare the village leader another look as he marched toward the gate. He didn't slow his pace at all as he approached the massive opening. He stopped though when he felt he had heard something. He stood still and angled his ear toward the noise, waiting to see if it would repeat itself.

"NARUTO!" Came the desperate shout. He turned around and looked down the main road. He spotted Iruka-sensei sprint-hobbling down the road due to his injuries the previous night. He came to a rest just before Naruto and the boys eyes widened as he realised that he was right. Iruka-sensei would miss him. His running himself ragged when he should be in the hospital proved that he cared for the young blond. He waited patiently for the chunin to catch his breath.

Once the man wasn't panting for air, he got down on one knee and yanked the young blonde into a hug. Naruto stiffened at the unfamiliar contact but proceeded to return the hug. He felt tears threaten to fall when Iruka began speaking. "You know, Naruto, you were my favourite student. You may not have been the smartest, or the most skilled, but you never gave up in all you did. I want to let you know that I'm proud of you. Taking down Mizuki was no easy task, and I don't take back what I said last night, just because Hokage-sama took your hitai ate away. I still consider you an excellent ninja and I can't wait to hear all about your adventures." Naruto choked up and tears flowed freely down his face as he realised that this is what he'd miss the most about the village.

When they ended the hug, Iruka stood back up to produce a pair of scrolls from the pockets on his vest. "Thanks Iruka-sensei." The boy replied tearfully, using his sleeve to wipe his tears away.

"No problem, but I want you to have these," He said holding out the scrolls to him. "I didn't manage to include everything you'll need but I fit in as much as I could find in the little time I had." He smiled when the boy gingerly took the scrolls and nodded his thanks. He reached over and ruffled the jinchuuriki's hair fondly, "Stay safe, Naruto."

The boy nodded and turned to walk away. As he was headed through the gates, he decided to at least part civilly with the old man. He walked up to him and said, "Hey, old man, don't I get a hug from you?" He instantly knew it was the right thing to do when the Hokage chuckled heartily and scooped him up.

The chuckling trailed off however and the man muttered, "Listen Naruto-kun, my old team mate Danzo is probably going to try and capture you as soon as you're clear of the village limits."

"The creepy old guy with the bandages?" He questioned, having been in the Third's office enough times to have crossed paths with the old warhawk.

The old man broke the hug and stood back to his full height, tapping his nose but proceeding to mask it with a scratch. Seeing understanding dawn on the boy, he continued, "Well, Naruto, I'm sorry we have to part like this but for what it's worth, I think you'd have made an excellent Konoha ninja. Do this old man a favour and _remember_ to stay alert." He said, the emphasis on the word almost palpable.

The boy thought back confusedly and wondered what the old man meant but couldn't make heads or tails of the statement. He just decided to think on it later on. "I will, old man." Naruto took a deep breath and proceeded to walk a few steps outside the large gates of Konoha. The road stretched on aimlessly before him, pin straight until the horizon. Tall trees followed along on either side. He stopped and breathed deeply as he took his first breaths on the other side of the massive walls. He exhaled tiredly and his shoulders slumped as he pondered his life so far. He turned around and took one last longing look at his home. ' _Tch, former home_.' his brain supplied. His posture perked back up when he saw the people standing by the gate.

On the left, the chunin guards looked on dispassionately from their post. Opposite them stood the Third Hokage, one Sarutobi Hiruzen, looking far older than the young blonde had ever seen him. His eyes fell on the man standing next to him. Umino Iruka, his favourite teacher at the tightly in his hands was the hitai ate he had so proudly donned on the boy the night before. His eyes were misted over with tears and his posture spoke volumes of the sadness he was feeling. He tried to brush it off and stand straight when he noticed Naruto's eyes on him but the boy showed no reaction.

A little ways down the street, a small figure hidden behind the corner of a shop went unnoticed. Her tear stained face was set in a mask of firm determination. She had seen him trudging away from the Hokage tower with his ANBU escort and had watched as he packed up what little he had in his apartment. She had cried bitter tears for the injustice against the one she so admired until she had realised that her tears weren't going to bring him back. She had thought about what he would do, and how he would react if he were her, and she knew that he'd never take it lying down. He wouldn't wallow in his pain while someone he cared about was tossed out into the cold. He'd do everything he could to get them back, failing that, he'd find a way to help them in any way he could, before hunkering down and training until he was strong enough to bring them back himself. She decided that she could do no less.

Her tiny fists clenched tightly as she reaffirmed her resolve, her mouth set in a firm line. She felt the scrolls she had only just managed to grab for him shuffle around in her pocket. She breathed deeply and emerged from her hiding place. She saw the way his brows furrowed in confusion when he noticed her. She locked eyes with him and started off towards him. He waited as she approached and all the surrounding people turned to watch. When she was close to him she bit back her urge to hug him and burst into tears, knowing that her resolve to get stronger and his imminent absence was the only thing even keeping her from blacking out at their proximity.

"Naruto-kun," she started, allowing herself to fall back to all the lessons in etiquette a Hyuuga princess has to go through, "I'm here to say thank you." She smiled as she saw his eyebrows wrinkle in confusion, but continued before he could voice it. "All the times things were hard for you, all the times when no one would've held it against you if you had given up, you kept going. You kept trying and never let anyone's words affect you. I admire your confidence and you've inspired me to gain some of my own. For that I'm very grateful. Here," She intoned, holding out a single scroll to him, "to aid you in whatever you decide to do next." She finished, having reverted to all her training as an heiress to help her speak without stuttering.

He stood there in shock for a moment until her words registered, then he reached out and took the offered scroll. "Thank you, Hinata-chan." He offered, his voice almost a whisper. ' _I never knew she saw so much. Maybe Iruka-sensei was right after all. I should pay more attention._ ' He thought.

She nodded and turned on her heel to walk away before her old habits would turn her back into an unconscious wreck. Naruto watched her walk away for a few seconds, trying to think and figure out how he had missed the now obvious signs. He resolved to be more observant in the future. He tucked the scroll into his pocket and turned around again and faced the unknown. There were no words left to be spoken. He remembered the old man's tip about an aged warhawk who would try to capture him as soon as he left the village, so he formed the hand seal for the technique he had learned the night before. A quick burst of chakra later the road and surrounding trees were full of orange clad blondes.

The chunin guards' eyes widened to saucers as they watched the multitudes of blondes dash off into the forest. They broke off in various directions, some taking to the trees and others running along the ground. In moments the area in front of the gates of Konoha were just as silent as they were before.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

 **AN: Just so you know, I'm using Narutopedia for my geographical info. There's a map there if you wanna see it. Also, please review. It would mean a lot to me.**

About five miles from Konohagakure no sato, a blue eyed blonde leapt from branch to branch in the surrounding forest. His balance was off and he didn't have much traction on the branches, but he remembered having seen some ninjas doing this in one of the village training grounds, and he was determined to master it. He let his thoughts drift to the word he'd heard just before he left the village. ' _Remember_.'

He was no closer to figuring out the Hokage's cryptic statement than he was when he made it. ' _I swear, that old man has gone senile. I mean, what kind of hint is that….._ ' He made a hand sign and a poof of smoke later, his features morphed to mimic the third's wrinkled visage, ' _Remember_.' "Remember what?" He muttered aloud, his frustration getting the best of him. He racked his brain trying to think about something the aged village leader may have said to him in the past. He thought back to when he was told that the Hokage is the strongest because he's the one who must protect everyone. He remembered being told that the Hokage was the overall power in the village, that even though there was a clan council and a number of advisors, Konoha, like all other ninja villages, was a military dictatorship, and the Kage's word was law.

The orange clad academy dropout grew a little angry at the fact that the Hokage had all that power and yet chose to banish him. His loss of focus ensured he slipped on the next branch and found himself rapidly approaching the ground. He scrunched his eyes shut and dedicated his last seconds to a final desperate attempt of decoding the Hokage's message.

He hit the ground and disappeared in a puff of smoke.

* * *

A few miles in another direction, another clone was suddenly struck by the fear of falling to his demise, which only served to confuse him since he was taking a leisurely walk along the road. He shrugged and shook off the feeling. ' _Wierd. That's been happening all day._ ' He let his mind drift as he stared up into the cloudless sky. His hands were intertwined behind his head as he let his feet guide him along the pin straight road.

' _Well….It couldn't hurt to try and figure out what I'm gonna do now. Well, what I_ would _do if I was the boss. Well….I'm pretty sure I would…'_ His thoughts trailed off as he realised that nothing came to mind as an idea of what he wanted to do with his life now that he couldn't be Hokage. ' _I could try and be a ninja somewhere else….Like….Oh snap. I don't know any other hidden villages…..Wow. I should've paid more attention in class._ ' He allowed himself a few minutes to think about the fact that he had dedicated his entire life to being a ninja without even taking the time to get to know much about them. He literally had only just learned about chakra.

A few minutes down the road he decided to try and list everything he could remember from Iruka-sensei's lecture on graduation day.' _A ninja….'_ He bit back the urge to define one as a person who saves princesses and kicks bad guy butt, '… _..is a protector….Their purpose is to defend their village…. and….. protect their clients. They make sure things are running smoothly in the village…..They are led by the Hokage...um, no….by the leader of their hidden village…..They gotta obey all the leader's orders…They take any action necessary to benefit their village, even if that means going against other villages….'_

He stopped walking as he thought about his findings. ' _I wanted to be that for the Leaf. I wanted to protect the people so that they'd acknowledge me….Am I ready to lay my life down for some other village? Do I even want to? I mean, I know I want to help people…._ ' His thoughts dropped off when he noticed that even the drive to do that was weakened. He had mostly wanted to help and protect people to further his goal of being noticed and accepted by everyone. He wanted to be seen as the hero rescuing the princess from the bad guys, but not because he cared for her safety or felt that her treatment was an injustice or anything.

Sure he felt that it was wrong and all, and he'd rush out in a heartbeat to help people around him who need it out of the goodness of his heart, but he's just not the type to run around the Elemental Nations righting wrongs and delivering justice solely for justice' sake. ' _But that's okay. That's not what I wanted to do anyway._ ' He nodded resolutely to himself and continued on his path.

' _Right. What I_ do _want to do is…._ ' He tilted his head a little to the side as he pondered the question. ' _I mean, what I_ really _like doing….._ ' He scratched his head, ' _What I want to do with my life is…._ ' He huffed and threw his hands back behind his head as he finished that thought, ' _Not important right now. I'm freaking twelve years old. I don't need to have the rest of my life planned out yet._ '

This thought left the clone feeling relaxed, peaceful and almost like a weight had been lifted from his small shoulders…. Until a senbon needle buried itself deep into the back of his neck. Wide eyed, he burst into a cloud of smoke. The nearby masked ninja nodded in confirmation and took off to the next target. He put a hand up to his ear to report his movements to his commanding officers.

* * *

Near a small town, a little to the south west of his former home, the real Uzumaki Naruto started feeling oddly calm and relaxed about the rest of his life. He had been feeling phantom pains all over his body and his thoughts and emotions had been running rampant so he was grateful for the respite. He decided to just hold onto that feeling and find somewhere to lay his head before making any more life altering decisions.

' _First things first, getting out of fire country. I can't be sure they won't find me. I know I don't have the skills to evade them yet so it'd probably be best to just stay out of their reach._ ' He nodded to himself and started to make his way down to the town. He stopped though when he realised that he'd be handing himself over if he allowed them to see his distinctive features. ' _Right. And it'd probably be easier to get a job as an adult._ '

He made a few hand seals and henged himself into an average looking guy of average height and average build who had unimpressive brown hair. He was pretty much the literal definition of run-of-the-mill, mediocrity. He had on a white T-shirt with a brown vest on top as well as a pair of khaki shorts. He took some time to appreciate his effort,and then proceeded to make five more clones. "Alright! Henge back into the jumpsuits!" He ordered, channeling his inner drill sergeant.

A few puffs of smoke later and a squad of identical blondes stood at attention before him. "Sir!" They replied in unison, playing along with his little game.

"Good. I need to blend in with the locals. I want you to shadow my every move and let me know when I'm about to blow my cover. Just watch the civilians around me and let me know if I stand out." He paused to see if they were following him and received resounding nods in response. 'If you're about to be caught, dispel yourselves. We don't need our cover blown. I'm having you wear the jumpsuits so that you can teach me whatever stealth techniques you've used if you're still alive by the time we've gotten what we want. Dismissed!" He barked, enjoying the way his clones saluted him and dashed off to their duties.

As the clones disappeared, two of them stayed together as they dashed down the road. "Whadya think that was about?" One clone muttered to the other.

"I think the Boss is getting lonely and he needed someone to talk to."

"That's…..Yeah I have no words for just how sad that is."

"Or maybe he doesn't know that we know everything he knows at the moment of our creation." A third voice cut in, having been following just behind.

"Gyah!" Both clones jumped, not having been paying attention.

"Guys…." The third one said seriously, "We're on our own now. The Boss is depending on us to watch his back. We can't let him down. You remember what happened just before we left."

The first two clones gained serious expressions and nodded firmly at the third's words. "Right." The first intoned.

"Got it. No more time for games." The second added.

A few minutes passed in silence as they passed a sign written Tanzanaki Gai and made their way to the village. "On the side though, we've really gotta let him know about that knowledge at creation thing."

"Oh yeah."

"Totally."

"Man that speech was boring."

"Right?"

* * *

A short while later, Naruto walked into the small town at a civilian walk. Usually this kind of pace would drive him nuts, but there was so much to see that he didn't really notice. He saw large buildings lined up on either side of the high street. Their fronts were brilliantly lit with neon signs, even at midday. The street was busy with people of all shapes and sizes moving in and out of the large gambling dens.

The whole place seemed to be buzzing with activity and there even seemed to be some deconstruction happening. He saw people collapsing stands and tearing down posters and wondered, for a second, what event had just happened. All the way down the road, he saw casinos sitting on either side all the way until the horizon. There was one space on the street where he could see a large hotel and decided it would be as good a place as any to stay the night.

He approached the large, heavy looking double doors and was pleasantly surprised when the overly muscular guard greeted him politely, and opened the door for him. The sound it made made him certain the door was as heavy as it looked but he brushed that useless thought aside as he walked into the large lobby. The floors were smooth, tiled, and polished to a shine. He wasn't an expert on interior design, but even he could tell that everything was only made of things of the finest quality.

The walls were lined with paintings of various shapes and sizes, but their arrangement was immaculate. Each painting complemented the ones surrounding it and seemed to have been painted just to reside in that space. There were ones of memorable landscapes, like the endless deserts of the land of Wind, or the rocky mountains from the land of Stone. The plaques beneath the artworks themselves showed him where they were and gave him a brief snippet of their significance. After a few moments, he found himself drawn to an image of two massive statues.

They stood opposite each other in a huge looking valley. Their faces seemed to be polar opposites in terms of expression, but they held between them, the sign for peace and unity. A waterfall dropped off between them and pooled at their feet. Naruto felt….something…..when he was looking at the picture. It somehow felt more relevant to him than the rest of them. He shook off that feeling and brushed it off as lingering feelings for his old home. He looked at the words on the golden plaque, 'The Valley of the End. This glorious structure is a monument built to celebrate the union between the Senju and Uchiha clans in the formation of the first hidden village, Konohagakure no sato. The valley itself was a result of one of the fierce clashes between the two powerhouses, Hashirama Senju and Madara Uchiha.'

The boy's eyes widened to saucers when he read that and his head snapped back to the painting. The sheer size of the valley showed just how monstrous these two men were when it came to battle. He took a few seconds to truly take in the scene before him and felt his respect for the two men skyrocket. He noticed movement in his peripheral vision and turned to see a person come to stand next to him.

She was a shorter woman, with long, dark hair tied into a high ponytail. Her eyes were hidden behind a pair of sleek rimmed glasses and she had short bangs covering most of her forehead. She had on an expensive looking, white blouse coupled with a black pencil skirt and a dark coloured jacket. She had tall high heels which boosted her close to his height and her face had a light dusting of make up on it. She didn't turn to acknowledge his presence and her posture was ramrod straight as she took in the various artworks. He was struck by the fact that she seemed to belong in this high class hotel and he wouldn't have been surprised if she told him she was a regular in places like this.

"Breathtaking, isn't it?" She breathed, still not turning to face him but breaking him out of his thoughts.

"Huh? Oh yeah." He stammered dumbly, still a tad shocked that she was actually talking to him. Truthfully he'd been more than a little skeptical that his existence was only loathed in Konoha, but having confirmation that he was really free from their hatred was a dream come true. He suppressed his urge to break into a funky dance solo and whirled back to the painting. He took in a slow, measured breath to center himself and replied honestly. "It's almost unbelievable that two people could become so powerful."

He turned to her and saw his companion nodding in agreement, "True," she began, "But I was talking more about the painting itself." She turned to face him and continued with a smirk on her face. "Doesn't it just _speak_ to you?" she finished, her eyes flashing a deep, cerulean blue behind her glasses as she said 'speak'.

Naruto's eyes almost bulged out of their socket when he realised that this was one of his clones. He opened his mouth to demand her reason for moving out of the shadows, but it died on his lips when he remembered that he was wearing a henge to blend in. Causing a scene would be extremely counter productive.

He forced himself to calm down and muttered one word, "Why?"

"Because you were taking forever and the rest of us couldn't wait. Now come on, I already booked us into a room." She said starting off towards one of the hallways. "It's this way." She added when she didn't hear him following. Her words broke him out of his stupor and he followed her down the hall.

On the way, he turned his neck this way and that, enthralled by all the high quality things he was seeing. The hallway was home to a soft, warm carpet and abstract paintings seemingly bursting from behind their frames on the walls. The colours were somewhat muted and relaxed. He felt calmer but still curious as to why this clone took it upon himself….herself?... his thoughts were derailed and he pondered the conundrum for a moment, then promptly decided that the gender of a temporary chakra construct really didn't matter anyway. He shook his head but frowned when he couldn't find his way back to his previous train of thought.

' _Oh, right! The clone. How did he….she?_ ' His face scrunched up. ' _It._ ' He decided, and nodded resolutely, ' _How did it even get in here?_ ' He racked his brain for a second, then realised it would just be easier to ask. "Hey, how did you even manage to get a room here?"

She replied slowly, as if speaking to someone extremely stupid, "I reached into my purse, pulled out the money for a few nights, handed it over to the nice gentlemen at the reception."

"Hey." He started indignantly, "Don't treat me like an idiot." He huffed, and she seemed rather irritated by this statement specifically. "You know what I meant…..at least I think you do…..You should, right?" He trailed off, anger forgotten as the unsolved mysteries of his new technique continued to throw him off.

"Yes, of course I did." She replied, though it sounded a lot like she was actively trying not to grind her teeth together. "When we henged into the jumpsuits, we still had the packs on, and all the savings in 'gama-chan'." She continued, but didn't get a chance to finish when she heard the familiar cancelling of a henge and turned to see that he had stopped dead in his tracks and had dropped to the floor, frantically trying to make sure he wasn't missing most of his precious savings.

She sighed in exasperation and seemed to have a whispered conversation by herself. She visibly collected herself, but couldn't stop herself from speaking through her clenched teeth, "The money was produced by the chakra powering the henge, just like the packs, and the purse itself." The, 'idiot' at the end of the sentence wasn't said, but he could hear it in her tone just as much as if it had been.

He looked up from his search in confusion, then a frown formed when he put the dots together. "But wait, won't the money disappear when you drop the henge?" His eyes narrowed a little, "Wait, it already has, hasn't it?" That was stealing, and he had just gotten out of one pit of isolation. He wasn't ready to give that up, and jump into another one, for a single night at a fancy hotel.

She nodded and spoke in a clipped tone, "Let's finish this in our room." She turned on her heel and was gone around the corner before he could respond.

' _What the hell. Why is she acting like this?...Kami. Why is she even a she? Isn't she just a clone?_ ' His anger seemed to deflate with the mounting confusion from the Kage Bunshin jutsu. He shook his head and noted that sitting around and whining never helped him before. He stood to his feet, almost all the contents of his pack held in his arms but his 'gama-chan was safely tucked into a pocket. He continued around the corner and saw her waiting impatiently at one of the doors.

He picked up the pace and shuffled over to her as fast as he could. She put the key in the lock, opened up the door and walked in ahead of him, but each action seemed just a tad more forceful than it needed to be. He shook it off and strolled in after her, having to turn around to close the door with his foot.

He turned back to the waiting clone and was promptly met by a solid fist to the jaw. He was sent sprawling onto the ground, his smaller, unhenged frame rendered much more vulnerable than her larger one. His clothes were scattered all over the floor by the door and there were spots swimming in his vision.

He felt himself roughly pulled onto his feet and glanced to each side to see blank masks covering the faces of the two ninjas helping him to his feet. They stood him up and held him fast, posture perfect as they stood at attention in front of the still fuming woman in front of him. He tried to break free, but the much larger shinobis held him easily. He decided to change tactics and make some handseals, even incorrect as they would be with his hands separated as they were, but his arms were wrenched painfully behind him at the first twitch of his fingers.

He screamed in agony for a few seconds and his oppressors seemed to take that as an acknowledgement of the rules of this engagement, reverting back to the painless, yet vice-like grip. He breathed harshly, cursing his lax attitude and trusting nature. He tried to spot a way out, but it seemed they had chosen a room close to the center of the floor for a reason. He tried to think of a way to escape his current situation but none came.

His eyes teared up when he started to realise the price of his actions, but he refused to let any tears fall. He glared defiantly into the eyes of the woman standing across from him, ready to go down kicking and screaming if he had to.

"That's enough." She said when she saw the fight leave his body, "Let him go."

"Wait, What?" He intoned, but the two men had already released him and the small boy stumbled slightly at the change in pace. They seemed to slouch immediately as they walked away from the duo and to the chairs to relax. He stopped focusing on them when they pulled out a stack of cards and decided on a round of 'Go Fish'. He turned his confused gaze to the only woman in the room as she continued to fume silently at him.

"Why in the world were you being so reckless, so oblivious? What's wrong with you? How could you just trust me like that? What if I'd been a real ninja sent to capture you? Did you see just how easy that was for us?" She ranted, seeming to be close to pulling out her own hair in frustration. She berated him and lectured him on the importance of situational awareness, while he tried to see if he could figure out what was actually going on.

* * *

A few miles away, an old man smiled discreetly behind his intertwined fingers. He had noticed a tightness in a certain 'one eyed' cripple on the council in the meeting today and it warmed his heart to know that the golden haired academy dropout he favoured was still free as a bird. The signs weren't obvious to anyone who hadn't known Danzo for a long time, as his manner was almost unchanged from his usual behaviour, but Sarutobi Hiruzen had been his teammate for many years and knew all the man's well hidden tells. He didn't walk with his chin raised slightly as he always did when had gotten one over on someone, he didn't start referring to the Hokage as Hiruzen in public as he usually does when victorious, his muscles were all taut as he spoke to the rest of the council on future academy training programs.

The old Hokage remembered how his old teammate had acted on the night of the graduation and couldn't help but feel proud of his surrogate grandson. Danzo had fought tooth and nail to have the boy exiled so he would be easy to snatch up, away from prying eyes, but it seemed to be an exercise in futility. The boy was free as a bird and worse still, he'd lost more than a few good root agents.

The boy hadn't killed them of course, they were highly skilled ANBU and he was an academy dropout. No, they were executed on completely just charges of treason and desertion for chasing the boy when he did that clone stunt. Hiruzen figured that Danzo had probably wanted them to leave at night and to track the clueless boy, in fact, it wouldn't even have proved to be a difficult mission for even an experienced genin cell. The problem came when he summoned those multitudes of clones.

No one, not even the most seasoned hunter nins, could track the original within any reasonable time period with so much misdirection and distraction going on, so he had to send out a number of root agents to give chase. He couldn't send them from the bases, for fear of them being discovered, so he had to expose and consequently lose most of the forces that had infiltrated Konoha's regular shinobi ranks. The increased workload on his remaining forces had started to show its effects. Some shinobi were slipping up from exhaustion, there had already been three reported incident of an ANBU agent falling off of their vantage point during a patrol.

The aged leader smiled once more, confident that he was just a few more slip ups away from finding all of Danzo's secrets and being rid of him for good. It disappeared though, when he thought about the decision the council had unanimously made to remove the law prohibiting people from speaking about the boy's tennant. They stated that the laws had been causing discomfort among the people for too long anyway, and that the reason for the laws was to allow the child to have a regular childhood in Konoha. Now that that's no longer possible, it becomes illogical to continue a practice that makes the villagers uncomfortable, when the only person who stands to gain from it is long gone.

As the meeting drew to a close, he knew that word of Naruto's departure would spread like wildfire. Soon, all who were previously oblivious to his suffering would be clued in on the fact that he's a jinchuuriki. This new buzz would be the perfect time for Danzo to get his house in order and Hiruzen couldn't allow that to happen. This was too ripe an opportunity to pass up. He'd need to remain vigilant.

* * *

"So you really are a clone?" He asked once again, just to be sure.

"Yes, Naruto, just like I was the past four times you asked me." She replied dryly and he had the decency to blush in embarrassment.

"Right, right. And you punched me in the face because you were angry that I was being such an idiot?" He said, using her words because she said his own didn't convey his stupidity well enough.

"Yes."

"Tell him about the memory thing," one of the others called out from the other side of the room without taking his eyes of the card game.

"Oh yes," She started, " Naruto, That entire...speech...of yours just before we entered this town was totally unnecessary. We know everything you know at the time of creation so we all knew the plan before you even addressed us.

"Oh….Well that's useful." He decided. She pinned him with a stare and he folded, "Alright, alright. No more speeches. Happy?"

She nodded once. "Now, about that Juts-"

"Wait, wait, wait." He interrupted. "If you guys are as smart as me, how come your disguise was so much better, how come you seemed to blend in better and how come you thought about that trap and I didn't?"

"Well," She said, a little irritated about being interrupted, "It all started when you told us you wanted us to let you know how we handled the stealth. We all had the same idea at first, run around, moving from shadow to shadow…" She trailed off to judge his reaction and wasn't surprised when she received a sharp nod, "But once we were all together, we discussed among ourselves and decided that the easiest thing to do would be to make it seem as if we were a bunch of students on a field trip. There are lots of clones out there now going around now, gathering supplies, information, and anything else that might prove useful."

He sat back, suitably impressed. Apparently Iruka-sensei wasn't only good for a some free ramen and moral support. It seemed he really knew his stuff when he was droning on in class. Two minds really are better than one. Thinking about this, he noticed there were only three clones in the room with him. Seeing his confusion, she answered, "We're beings made of pure chakra so we can make much better use of our solid henge. I'm currently wearing custom glasses, a jacket and a necklace." She intoned, making it obvious that these were all clones. "They talk to me and we discuss all our actions. It was really easy to see all your shortfalls from far away when we could observe you and discuss your actions."

"Oh." He replied, short for any other words to add.

"Yeah. Now as I was saying, the first thing we need to do is take stock of the situation. We need to see where we stand and where we can go from here."

He nodded affirmatively.

"Okay, let's first check to see if there's anything important in those scrolls we got." She said as she moved over to one of the chairs, her jacket returning to the form of one of the masked ninjas and heading into the kitchen.

"Oh yeah, where did you get the idea for that outfit. I haven't seen...it...before?" He started to state, but then trailed off into a question when he started to see a jumble of images in his head. They were all about being attacked by one of those ninjas, often in ways he couldn't even keep up with.

"You're seeing them too?" One of the masked clones questioned. Great. That at least rules out the theory that you made us with some imbalance of chakra or something."

"So you were all seeing these guys as well?" He asked.

"Yes." The only female intoned, "But we'll deal with that when we get to it. First, the scrolls."

"Right." The young blonde said as he picked up the scrolls and moved to the only remaining chair. "Okay, this one's from Iruka sensei." He unrolled the paper and was greeted by an assortment of squiggles and lines that may as well have been greek to him. Under that though, there was, written in regular kanji, 'Chakra Here.' with an arrow pointing at a copy of one of the symbols that showed up close to the center of the messy gibberish above. He didn't hesitate to put his finger on the point and channel his chakra into it.

A poof of smoke, and the table was covered in various sets of clothes. There were piles upon piles of sweaters and jerseys. There were scarves and hats and there were even a few pairs of mittens. Naruto shook his head at the man's 'mother hen' complex but smiled widely at the fact that he didn't only have bad memories in Konoha.

He fished out the scroll from the bottom of the clothes and unrolled it a little further to see how to get it all sealed back in there. He did as the scroll instructed, channelling his chakra through the scroll to wrap around all the clothes in the pile. When he released his hold on his chakra, there was a poof of smoke and all the clothes were safely back in the scroll.

"Right. Now the next one is from Hinata-chan." He unrolled it and found a similar storage seal, but underneath, there was a message. 'Dear Naruto-kun. I am writing this because I can't stand how the village is treating you and I want to help you in the only way I can right now. I don't have the power to change their minds yet, but until I do, I will do what I can to help you. In this scroll are a bunch of scrolls on all the clans that the Hyuuga have faced and found to be worth mentioning. There's also info about Konoha's clans as well. I figure that even if you're not a ninja, you're not going to stop your chakra training and you're going to face someone from one of these clans at some point. A ninja needs to be prepared. I want to thank you one more time for giving me confidence and I swear, when you return, I won't be watching you from the shadows anymore, I'll be strong enough to stand by your side. Signed, Hyuuga Hinata.' He finished. He put the scroll to the side and picked up the last one.

He unrolled it and found yet another storage seal, but underneath this one was a message from his favourite teacher. 'Dear Naruto. I just want to say that I'm proud of you. You never give up and you always keep moving to your goal. Those are great qualities and you're going to need them for the rest of your life. I know it may seem challenging at first, but I know you can do amazing things, and one day, you'll go down in history as one of the greats. I've included all the things I could access while in my crippled state. I didn't manage to fit in a lot of things, but it's a start. P.S. Don't start working on elemental manipulation until you've got at least decent chakra control. P.P.S. Stay warm. Wear a sweater.' Naruto chuckled at that and continued on to find a list of all the things in the scroll.

Taijutsu scrolls, there was the academy one and a couple of others depending on how Naruto grew, and whether he wanted to focus on speed and agility, or raw power.

Chakra control exercises, ranging from simple academy ones, to more difficult variations aimed at improving it even further.

Tips on physical exercise and how best he should train to get into shape. There were also some tips on how to increase the intensity of the training even further.

Dietary advice, like how often he should eat and what foods he should avoid. He also included a standard academy textbook on identifying edible and poisonous plants.

A map of the Elemental Nations, along with a note telling him to avoid the land of Water and the land of Rain because of their civil wars. And also to avoid the land of Stone because of their hostility towards Konoha ninjas. He may not be one, but Iruka-sensei cautioned him nonetheless.

An academy history book detailing the happenings all around the Elemental Nations.

Basics on sealing. Iruka-sensei said that he couldn't just carry around a pack for however long he'd be travelling and it'd be easier if he had scrolls for everything.

Shurikenjutsu forms and techniques, along with a basic description of how to work with certain other weapons. There was also a very detailed guide on how to maintain weapons and how to check the quality of a weapon in a store.

A single sheet of chakra paper that he was expressly forbidden from even looking at until he was at least chunin level. Naturally, Naruto figured that he'd learned a jonin level technique and thoroughly brutalised a chunin that had beaten another chunin, so that made him at least chunin level. He resolved to ignore Iruka-sensei's warning wholesale. There was also a whole slew of elemental manipulation techniques that Naruto was eager to get started on.

Types of ninjas, like trackers, sensors and genjutsu users. Naruto thought that being able to sense when someone was close to you was probably the most useful and he decided he'd found something to help him with his situational awareness.

Reading people and being able to tell when they're lying. There were a lot of uses for that, he decided.

The rest of the scrolls were just various things that he could do if he decided to give up on the ninja way and follow a different path, like cooking, farming, trading, sewing, building, knitting, painting, baking and a couple of other civilian jobs.

Naruto smiled as he thought about the scarred chunin who was still looking out for him despite it no longer being his job. He swore to himself that he would always do right by that man and make him proud.

The clone across from him cleared her throat and spoke, "Well that's brilliant. We have a much better start than I thought we would. But we'll look at all that later." Naruto resisted the temptation to pout at her seemingly trying to ruin his fun. "We first need to make a plan on what we're going to do, then we need to figure out the secrets of the kage bunshin. Make a dozen clones."

He did frown at being ordered around, but proceeded to do as he was told, and promptly made twenty clones. He smiled sheepishly as he scratched the back of his head, "I guess I still need to work on chakra control, huh."

"Yes," she replied. "Anyway, all of you," she said, addressing the room now filled with clones. "Henge into smaller children, there's no space for all of you like that in here." A few puffs of smoke later, along with some creative seating arrangements, all the clones were seated and ready to begin the discussion. "Right. Now try and think about what the way forward is from here."

Each clone began to think about what they wanted to do with their lives, and each of them found that they remembered having this debate mentally not too long ago. They each thought back to that time and found the memory of walking along the road and pondering their existence. Only, just after they managed to reach the conclusion that they didn't have to have their entire life planned out, the memory ends with a sharp pain in the back of the neck.

"Why do I remember that happening?" Naruto asked. "I ran along the ground in a pretty big group of clones. I've never walked on the road outside Konoha."

The room filled with a chorus of agreements and the consensus was reached that the memory was a foreign one.

* * *

Elsewhere in the town. A small boy trudged along next to his 'sister'. They were clones tasked with getting information and they'd found out that the festival that had just passed was a popular annual gambling tournament that actually happened twice a year. Apparently, it happened twice because some people preferred the western style neon lighting and the flashy, technologically advanced casinos to the traditional ones. Basically, this one had mostly western ambiance and games, and the next one, about six months from now actually, had the more traditional atmosphere and games.

The boy decided, it would be pretty fun to come back then, but his mood was soured by the fact that he didn't know where to meet back up with the boss and all the other clones. He hadn't paid attention when the one henged into a girl had informed the 'class' on where to meet up afterwards. So now, he found himself wracking his brain, trying to find a way of getting the knowledge he had back to the boss. He ignored the almost panicked words coming from the clone by his side.

The other clone was starting to get mad. She'd been trying to tell him that they'd passed the hotel they were supposed to meet up at. She almost decided to leave him to fend for himself, but she knew that they were supposed to work together, and that teammates don't abandon each other. She decided she'd help him instead.

By slugging him across the jaw.

He recoiled in pain and went up in smoke. Her eyes widened when she realised that if all it took was one good punch to dispel him, then she needed to hurry and report to the boss. She turned on her heel and made for the large double doors.

* * *

 **Well, that's chapter 2. Again, please review. Apparently, less than 3 percent of readers do. That's kinda awful. Anyway, I'll try to post as soon as I can. Not gonna commit to an update schedule. Don't wanna make promises I can't keep.**


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

 **AN: Hi guys, sorry it's been three weeks. I really feel like I've let you all down, (even though I** _ **didn't**_ **commit to an update schedule). I hope that this chapter makes up for it. I really don't have a legit excuse, other than every time I was feeling like writing, I'd tell stop because I never thought I'd get it good enough. But that's what you guys are there for, right? To tell me whether or not I suck…. Well, enough apologising, onto the story.**

* * *

The small clone walked into the large hotel. As she walked, she couldn't help but notice all the paintings on the walls. The peculiar thing about them was that she remembered seeing all of them before, yet she'd never entered the hotel before. She blinked, then promptly decided that the boss would probably have a better chance of figuring it out.

She continued on her path to the reception, but then blinked again when she realised that she already knew where she was going. She shook her head at the surprisingly convenient but nonetheless unsettling knowledge and veered off into the hallway. She walked all the way to the end, enjoying the feeling of soft carpet under her.

She stopped at the door. She took in a deep breath. ' _It probably won't be long until I'm gone._ ' She thought sadly. She released the breath loudly and made a show of looking around and checking for anything suspicious.

No such luck.

' _Um, I mean, all clear…. Yeah. That's what I meant. He-he._ ' Her shoulders drooped as she pushed down the door handle and walked through the doorway. Her sombre mood didn't last long though as she stood in shock at the frenzied panic in the room. The bossy female with the weird glasses was sitting in one of the chairs on the other side of the room pinching the bridge of her nose and generally looking like she was trying to count down from infinity to calm herself down.

That wasn't the cause for her shock though. No, that honour went to the hundreds of tiny little clones of the boss strewn about the room in various areas. There were all about a foot tall and they seemed to all be trying to get to the bottom of some mystery. Unsurprisingly, no progress was being made due to the sheer number of clones trying to get a word in. They were all sat in small groups, "discussing" among themselves.

The two guard clones Seemed to have decided on ignoring them outright. They continued with their game of 'go fish', using hand signs to communicate instead of trying to talk over the ruckus. The small girl decided that trying to get the boss' attention would be a foolish idea. She instead moved over to the only other female clone in the room. She opened her mouth and was about to speak, when the clone held up a single finger.

She took a deep, calming breath and started to sign to her. "Let me guess, you and your partner got some info on the festival and on your way back here, he met his end somehow." She said, finally opening her eyes to take in the smaller clone's reaction.

"Um, yeah. I...kinda, um…. may have…. sort of….allegedly punched him in the jaw." Her hands were working on auto-pilot, as she was genuinely shocked by the other clone's knowledge of her short life. "Wait. Were you watching us?" She questioned a little sharply, not happy about the implied mistrust.

"No," ' _Idiot._ ' She replied, "I simply took all the facts and came to the only logical conclusion. All the memories we have are sent back into the network of clones when we're dispelled." She took in the surprised widening of the smaller clones eyes as acquiescence and nodded to herself. "I'm glad I have confirmation." She stood and turned to the two guard clones behind her.

She held out her hand and they wordlessly handed over their shuriken and kunai holsters. The smaller clone briefly grappled with the fear that she'd be dispelled, but calmed when the bossy clone gestured for her to move out of the way. She wasn't altogether fond of how utterly dismissive the gesture had been, but at least the pointy objects wouldn't be coming at her. She slipped her hands into the clone's pouches and palmed some shurikens.

She turned to the still oblivious room of panicked clones and swung her arms in a wide sweeping arc. The shurikens dispelled all the clones closest to her, and continued on their path, poofing away any clone unlucky enough to be in their shadow. The loud, panicked voices that had filled the room pretty much disappeared as almost all the culprits were dispelled.

"Hey!" Came the indignant shout from the original, "What the hell? You could've hit me!"

The perpetrator huffed in annoyance but couldn't keep her mouth from twitching into a smile at his red face. She made a few more sweeping motions and the room was clear of 'mini-clones.' "Small groups work best. Spamming a million idiots only worsens the problem."

The jinchuuriki pouted at the response. "Oh yeah? So did you find out where those memories came from?" He challenged.

"Yes." She gestured to the little girl standing awkwardly to the side. "She was getting info with her 'brother' and when she got frustrated with him she punched him out of existence." Her eyes narrowed with this statement and she was pleased to see him sweat a little at the implication. "Judging by all the info we have, when a clone dispels all their memories are fed back into the network. It explains all the foreign memories."

"Oh. Okay." Naruto felt relieved that she seemed to have figured it out. He decided that maybe it would be best to allow her to lead a bit while he adjusted. She seemed to really have a handle on the situation and to know what she was talking about. He tilted his head to the side though when he felt that he didn't want to keep referring to her as 'she'. "Well, I really want all of you guys to stick around, so I'm gonna make some names for ya." He whipped out his finger and pointed at the little girl still standing off to the side, "You'll be Tiny," His hand swung over to the other female, who looked a little resentful of his choosing their names, "Red, and for the 'ANBU' we'll just go with the colours of your mask's whiskers." The guard clones nodded absently, morphing their whiskers to the colours they wanted. The black haired clone raised an eyebrow at the name. "Right. Moving on, what's our next step?"

Red's eyes narrowed at the way he avoided the implied question but she decided to go along with it. "Now we need to get a few jobs." She saw the way the golden haired boy's face fell at her words so she elaborated. "We all experienced that memory. We've all come to the conclusion that we don't really have to have all our lives planned right now, but we can still plan for the short months ahead of us. We can do various jobs to get a feel for them and find out what exactly we want to do. It'll also give us the opportunity to learn a whole bunch of different things."

Naruto nodded a little reluctantly at her words. He saw the importance in what she'd said, but the idea of spending all day doing office work wasn't exactly appealing to him.

"Alright. Tiny, go see if you can find a school and get some more information about how things work around here."

"Wait, weren't we planning on leaving the Land of Fire as soon as possible?" Naruto asked. He knew that this new ability of the kage bunshin would be a massive help in avoiding those pursuing him, but he didn't really feel confident enough to risk it.

"Well, they've just had a big festival here so a couple of new faces popping up shouldn't raise any alarms. Also, Danzo's probably expecting us to try and run. I doubt he'd expect us to stay in one place, let alone a large town so close to Konoha." Red saw him nod in understanding, and she started to make her way for the door. "Come on, we'll go find a nice clearing and make some clones there. They'll go get the jobs, and we'll stay and train."

Naruto perked up at this, scrambling to his feet and following her to the door. Only remembering to reapply his henge when he was almost by the door. He was looking forward to whatever training he'd be able to do on his own. He was sure that between him, Red and all the clones he could make, they'd come up with something interesting.

* * *

In a barbeque shop a few miles away, one Sarutobi Asuma pulled a cigarette out of his pocket. He held it out to the red hot coals on the table in front of him and put it to his lips when it lit up. He drew in a slow breath, basking in the familiar sensation. He'd been covertly watching the trio of clan heirs that he'd requested and wasn't too happy that his 'team' had just left him alone, but at least now he could smoke freely. Hey, you had to appreciate the little things.

He had been really surprised when a similar group of clan heirs led by a small Hyuuga girl came up to their table and asked them to go with her somewhere. The fact that the small girl had seemed resolute and in charge had apparently thrown his entire team for a loop. He wondered why they were so surprised. All the stuck up Hyuuga were like that, weren't they? He shrugged internally and glanced at the empty plates at the abandoned table, chuckling a little at the memory of the Akimichi cleaning them all out just before they left.

He knew why they were leaving, of course. He had heard about the way the village's jinchuriki had gotten himself banished. He felt a little bit sorry for the kid but rules were rules. He popped another piece of meat on the grill as he absently wondered how things would change in the village.

* * *

A pale eyed Hyuuga girl stood in the clearing in one of the academy training grounds across from her entire graduating class. Out of their whole graduating class, only two boys who'd been with them throughout the years weren't anywhere to be seen. Her little heart was almost thrumming its way right out of her chest but thoughts of one of the absent students strengthened her.

"Th-thank you all for meeting me here." She inwardly cursed the slight stutter in her voice from how nervous she was feeling. "I'm sure you're all wondering why you're here." She paused for a moment to let them settle themselves and actually pay attention. "I-I just have a few things I think you should know." She put a hand to her chest. "You will likely hear them from others soon enough but I wanted you to hear it at least once from an unbiased person."

Most of her former classmates nodded acceptingly, if a little cautiously, but one Nara boy narrowed his eyes suspiciously.

"So, as most of you know, yesterday Naruto-kun failed the graduation exam.-" The dark haired girl was cut off by the sounds of laughter coming from the group.

"Yeah, The deadlast couldn't pass a test he'd been failing for years, what a surprise." Most of the group laughed even more uproariously at that, but the Hyuuga was unamused. Her face first registered shock, and then anger at the blatant disrespect. She catalogued all the faces, wholly unconscious of her activated byakugan.

Shikamaru sighed at the former students' predictable response. Their laughter was cutting into the shy Hyuuga's speech and that was in turn cutting into _his_ cloud watching time. Did these people have no consideration? Didn't they know that it was team assignment day on monday and the only time they'd have free for the next few weeks was right now? Kami-sama, people could be so thoughtless sometimes. And thinking of thoughtlessness, Hinata-san could've thought a little harder about what she wanted to say.-

The dark haired boy was broken out of his thoughts when he saw the look on her face. It wasn't _quite_ murderous per say, but it was a pretty damn scary face compared to how the girl usually looked. He didn't need three guesses to know what would happen if he let her explode at everyone else. "What a drag." He muttered to himself, then projected loudly, but still a little disinterestedly to the rest of the graduates. "Alright, enough, guys! Let her speak."

The class calmed down shortly after that but the Hyuuga heiress wasn't of the same persuasion. "Thank you, Nara-san, but that won't be necessary." She intoned stiffly, not taking her still engorged eyes off the group. Hinata was only barely able to keep herself from blurting out everything about what had happened last night, along with a torrent of vitriol, at her fellow graduates so she decided to abandon her plan. "I'm sorry for wasting your time." She intoned just as woodenly before dashing away towards the exit.

The laughter had died down at the sight of the Hyuuga princesses anger and the cold steel in her voice and the pre-teens stood there awkwardly and a little frightened and ashamed. They were all well aware of just how much the Hyuuga girl held back in spars because of her fear of hurting them, and pushing her far enough that she'd actually contemplate it was no small feat. The kids knew how much she admired the dead last, you'd have to be as dumb as the idiot boy himself not to, but they hadn't really thought much of having a laugh at his expense. It was what he was there for, right? Well, in any case, most of them felt bad for offending and angering the poor girl so much, especially since it had almost driven her to violence. They'd all been taught how debilitating a proper jyuuken strike could be and the girl wouldn't have stopped herself from using it anymore. Most of the group resolved to apologise to her at some point.

* * *

Hinata made her way at a brisk walk through the streets of Konoha. Her face was drawn into the neutral mask she hated having on but 'a Hyuuga could never show weakness'. Her father would _not_ be pleased if he heard she was broadcasting her emotional weaknesses for the whole village to see. She wasn't keen to have to deal a displeased Hiashi anytime soon so she kept her anger firmly locked within herself.

Her thoughts of the botched opportunity swirled chaotically in her head as she made her way to the place she called home. She needed to hit something. Alas, clan rules dictated that Hyuugas simply did not ' _hit things'_ and she'd have to settle for something respectable, like meditating by the koi pond or working in the flower garden. She'd very much prefer to hit something right now, maybe even a lot of 'somethings' but being but one twelve year old girl, she'd have to settle for the gardening. Thinking about the whole mess, she'd just wanted to explain Naruto's situation to them so they'd know the truth before it was twisted into a pretzel by whoever would tell it to them next, but she didn't have the patience to deal with their ignorance any longer. Having the knowledge of the entire burden that that Naruto-kun had to bear for them, and then seeing the way they repaid him had made it impossible for her not to get angry.

She hadn't stayed because she didn't trust herself not to expose her knowledge of any secure village secrets. She'd wanted so bad to tear into them and defend the boy who'd inspired so much confidence in her, but she didn't want to lose her life for it. They'd go to their parents for confirmation and it wouldn't be long before the source of their knowledge was discovered. Even the might of the Hyuuga clan couldn't protect her if she spilled an S-rank secret.

She still had her own dream and a promise to keep. It didn't matter that the promise was to herself, she'd sworn that she'd bring the blonde boy home and she wasn't about to go back on her word. As she glanced around at the villagers around her though, she couldn't really claim to have all that much faith in her plan anymore. At first, she'd been confident that all she'd have to do was clear his name and then let him know it was okay to come back again, but she wasn't so sure she'd want him to come back. Thinking about how he'd lived before she was pretty sure that she didn't want him to return. Not to this.

She wasn't even sure if he'd _want_ to come back anymore. After being cast aside by the very same village, she knew that he had enough self worth to refuse and decide to stay wherever it was he found himself. The pale eyed girl found herself a little bit saddened by this thought and the fact that coupled with him being treated the way she just knew any other people would treat him, it would be all but impossible to get him to come back.

The blonde was determined, cheerful, confident and most importantly, he just made you want to be a better person whenever you were around him. His fierce determination was just too intense not to be contagious. There was no way he'd be treated anywhere near the same anywhere else. He'd be loved wherever he went. Her eyes clouded over with this thought and her anger disappeared at the notion of never seeing the blonde again. The thought almost made her sick to her stomach.

She was disgusted with herself. She'd spent ages admiring the boy from afar but she'd never shown even an ounce of the admiration she felt for him. The way he always carried on and tried his damn hardest had given her confidence whenever she'd needed it and how did she pay him back? By completely failing to give him even a moment of the acknowledgement he so desperately desired. It was clear that he was just as void of that as she was of confidence and it made her feel terrible about the way she'd pretty much leached what she needed from him and didn't give an inch in return.

But it wasn't just the fact that she could. It was the fact that she _wanted to_. Her feelings for the blonde ran deep within her and she would be all for providing all the lo-acknowledgement and understanding that the blonde could ever need, but she had just been too scared to take the plunge and express her feelings. She shook her head and made a decision.

' _Never again._ ' Never again would she deny her heart it's needs because her head was too scared of what everyone else would think. She nodded to herself slightly and rounded the last corner and seeing the tall gated wall come into view. She strode purposefully up to it, not noticing the widened eyes of the guards flanking it.

The gate was pulled open for her without a word and she walked into the large compound, turning immediately to go to the large garden her mother had loved to work in. Most of her anger was gone, but she still wanted to be among the greenery that contained so many memories of good times with her mother.

As she arrived in the garden though, she stopped short at the entrance at the sight of one of the elderly members of the clan sitting in the bench by the koi pond. He glanced up at her and beckoned wordlessly for her to approach. The fact that he was a branch member and didn't have the slightest right to request even _that_ from her didn't even register to her. The girl walked closer to him and stood just shy of his place on the bench. "Hai, Kôten-san?"

He smiled warmly and addressed her. "Ah, Hinata-kun. Go and fetch me glass of water, please, I'm quite thirsty."

The young clan heir smiled a little sadly at the elderly man. He was always mixing her up with one of his granddaughters. She flared her chakra in an ingrained pattern and less than a second later, a branch member was by her side. She looked at the girl who was about her height and smiled once more. "Momo-san, please may you fetch your grandfather some water." The girl nodded wordlessly and dashed off to fulfil the request.

As Hinata was about to walk away, the old man frowned and grabbed her wrist making her stop in her tracks. She turned back around and looked at him questioningly. "Why did you send for her when I asked you to do it?"

The small girl's smile became a little tight at his words. "I am a member of the main branch. It would displease my father if I was seen catering to the needs of a cadet branch member."

The old man snorted derisively. "Displeased? Do you honestly think he'd care when he's going to brand you in a few months anyway?" He spoke as if it was common knowledge.

Hinata stiffened and yanked her wrist out of the hold he still had it in. "I wasn't made aware of any such plans." She responded.

He raised the bandana on his forehead, baring a multitude of green marks among the furrows. "Hiashi-sama has been putting it off for years now but the clan needs a true heir. At the last gathering of the clan council he agreed that you'd get the seal in a week or two when you inevitably disappoint your sensei, or at the very latest, in a few months when you fail to be promoted to chuunin." He looked at her in honest confusion. "You truly were not informed?"

She shook her head mutely, not bothering to argue about her skill to pass the chuunin exam. She knew that since Neji's sensei had deemed his team unprepared last year then there was no hope at all for her to pass.

"Well, no matter, it will be better for you to get used to it now than to have to adjust all at once, hmm?" He intoned as he turned away from her in a clear dismissal.

She stepped away from him slowly and started to numbly make her way to her room. She wasn't surprised by the news, she'd always thought that she'd be wearing the seal sooner or later since it would probably be the only way to keep Hanabi-chan's forehead clean, but she'd never anticipated that it'd be so…... _soon_. It felt….real. There was so much she wanted to do that she wouldn't have the freedom to as a cadet member. She shook her head and decided to at least get some reassurance. She'd let her sister know and then ask her to take over her dream of seeing the Hyuuga family united. At least that way it wouldn't end with her sealing.

The blue haired girl turned on her heel and headed toward her sisters room, feet making no sound as she moved on the polished wood. Rounding a corner, she saw the familiar door and strode up it. She announced herself politely and it slid open to reveal her small sister. It was a weekend, so usually Hanabi would be training with their father, but the team assignments were being finalised today and all the parents had to be present for a briefing and to know which team their child was to be placed on.

"Hanabi-chan, may I come in?" She asked, not wanting to discuss such things out in the open.

"Actually, Onee-sama, I was about to go and train." A quick downward glance told the older Hyuuga that the younger was indeed geared up to do some exercise.

"Oh, okay." The older girl was a little nervous from the intense stare of the younger, but proceeded nonetheless. "Um, I was just wondering, um, what are you planning to do when… when you become the head of the clan." She finished shakily.

Hanabi's pale eyes narrowed a bit. "That senile old man told you, didn't he?" She said, not really needing an answer.

The older girl's eyes widened in shock at the unfamiliar tone. "Who?" She asked, mostly just to fill the silence.

"Who else could I be talking about. Of course it's Kôten-san." The younger girl spoke as if it was common knowledge. "Otou-sama and I have been working for weeks to get him off of the clan council."

The older Hyuuga blinked once at that having had no knowledge of that information. It sounded an awful lot like Hanabi-chan was already sitting in on the clan council meetings. "So you've been allowed to listen in on the council meetings?"

The younger sibling's brow scrunched up in honest confusion. "I've had _that_ privilege for about a year now." She stated noticing the way her sister's eyes widened at that. "The only new thing is that recently Otou-sama lets me chair most of the routine ones." She saw her older sister nod a little numbly at the new information and decided to get on with the conversation. "So you wanted to know what I planned to do with the clan once I take up my position as head and whether I'll support your dream of uniting both houses or not." She intoned, having known as much.

The bluenette nodded once more at a loss of words at just how thoroughly she'd been beaten without even being aware of it.

"Well, Onee-san, I can't promise that I'll destroy the system as it is, but I'll be honest, Otou-sama has been teaching me all about affairs between other clans and I'm certain the way we handle our own members isn't the best." The small girl nodded to herself slightly. "All I can say that it'll definitely be changed, and only for the better."

Hinata looked in her sister's pale orbs and could see a multitude of emotions within them, the most prominent one being honesty. She nodded her acquiescence and excused herself, making her way out of the corridors and to the gates of the compound still reeling from the shock. It felt like the earth had just been violently yanked away from beneath her feet and she really needed to get somewhere.

* * *

One Hyuuga Hanabi kept her face expressionless as she slid the thin door to her room closed once more. With the aid of a few handsigns she had the chakra pathways to her eyes bulging and turned her head to look at the old man still sitting in the garden, but now having been joined by his granddaughter Momo. His own bloodline was active as he watched her intently and she gave him an acknowledging nod, receiving a firm nod back.

She watched as he deactivated his byakugan and went back to teaching his grandchild about the various types of fish kept in ponds. The clan heiress sighed a little to herself, not much more than the slight drooping of her shoulders as she exhaled. That had been harder than she'd thought, but thankfully not harder than the alternative.

The small seven year old felt somewhat bad about what she'd effectively done to her sister, but she found that she couldn't really beat herself up about it since it was for the best. Hinata could handle being branded and cast into the place of a cadet member. Hanabi knew she couldn't. Having to face Otou-sama when he looked at her the way he did Hinata…. It would break her, let alone being discarded like that. She couldn't do it.

She'd never admit it to anyone, but the news Kôten had brought to her about how her older sister had used copying scrolls to get her hands on some really curious material had scared her. She couldn't have Hinata feeling like she could just take her position away from her. She was her older sister and it was the job of older siblings to protect younger ones.

Hanabi knew that argument was about as strong as the paper door to her room, but she couldn't help it. Hinata was just…...weak. She didn't have any need for anything that really mattered, like pride, or self worth, or power. Sure, She wouldn't have a great time being pretty much a slave to the main family, but Hanabi would handle it even worse. All in all, the small brown haired girl had no regrets about figuratively throwing her sister under the bus. All she'd done was to make her believe she'd already lost and only at the cost of one personal favour to Kôten's granddaughter. That was well worth it in her book.

* * *

Yamanaka Ino rummaged through the various drawers of her desk looking hard for a book she'd tossed to the side ages ago. She'd been totally frozen on the spot when she'd been hit by the killing intent of _the Hyuuga wallflower_ of all people. It was scary enough that they'd managed to push the shy girl so far but even more so that she couldn't even move a muscle while it happened.

Her dad had taken pains to make sure she was able to accurately judge a person's strength and mindset based on the intent they're putting out and being subjected to the raw killing intent of the small girl had been terrifying. Just like any Hyuuga, she was pretty much flawless with her control, even when she wasn't, so it only hit her for the instant her eyes locked with the other girl's.

It had been enough.

That short instant had shown her just how wide the chasm between them really was skill wise. It drove home the fact that for Ino, who was becoming a real kunoichi in two days time, was woefully unprepared. If that'd been a real battle in the field, she'd either be long dead or on her way to being so thoroughly violated that…...she couldn't even imagine it.

That scared the living daylights out of her. She lifted a small book out of the drawer triumphantly and wasted no time in cracking it open. The first few pages spoke of the basics of the Ino-Shika-Chou formation that their dads had come up with when they'd all been placed on the same team. She already knew they'd made that very same request for her so she wanted to make sure she'd be the most prepared for the coming team assignments. There wasn't any more time for games.

* * *

A pale eyed Hyuuga scowled as he took to the trees alongside his teammates. Once again, he was on the way back to Konoha from a C-rank mission during this time of year. His heckles had been raised by the fact that last year Gai had insisted they'd have plenty of time despite his protests, and they'd ended up missing the chuunin exams.

Because of the classless desires of the uncouth masses and their need to hold that ridiculous tournament twice a year, there was always a spike in bandit activity around these times. During the next event most jounin would be deployed to keep the unwashed bandits in check, but this close to the chuunin exams, while everyone was focused on the various preparations, most skilled ninja stayed in the village since spies tend to find that opening a bit too tempting. This meant that since his team was already in the field, they had been called to take care of all the numerous bandit camps that started to crop up around the area. And seeing as he wasn't currently within the village walls, he'd probably be stuck doing that again this year.

Knowing that the exams were being held in Konoha made him a little hopeful that he'd be able to make it back in time to participate, but it was looking more and more likely that it was his fate to remain a genin another year. He briefly entertained the thoughts of whether Gai had done this on purpose but dismissed that notion quickly. Last year, the man had been just as upset about them missing their chances to 'Show off how brightly the Flames of Youth burned within them' and he'd spent close to two days doing one of those asinine punishments of his.

He shook off those thoughts and returned to the reason for his sour mood. This mission. Apparently, they had done such a good job the last time around that they had been personally requested. All plans of keeping within the confines of the village walls until after the exams were shattered at that point since the village had a reputation to maintain. They would never blow off a client, and a returning one at that, for something as mundane as a spa appointment and this was treated very much the same. The team worked like a well oiled machine and was easily capable of any C-rank mission, meaning there was no real _need_ for any of them to become chuunin.

Sure it would be convenient for the village if they were to take up positions of leadership and ease the workload all around, but it wasn't an immediate necessity by any stretch of the imagination. Thus, the satisfaction of the customer came first.

The dark haired boy didn't really care about any of that though. He was mostly bothered by the fact that a prodigy like him and a failure like Hinata were classed the same and seen as equal ninja in the eyes of the village. He couldn't stomach that for much longer and he didn't even know what he would do if by some quirk of fate she got promoted before him.

His eyes widened a miniscule amount when he realised that she probably _would_. Hiashi had all the might of the entire Hyuuga clan behind him and it wouldn't be very difficult at all for him to get her a flak vest. He seethed silently at the main branch once again abusing their power when he remembered that Hiashi cared about just as much for Hinata as Neji himself did. His rage disappeared at the thought that the most aid their pathetic excuse for a clan heir would probably receive would be the threat of being branded if her failure was too shameful.

He calmed himself down a little and made a note to improve his hold on his emotions. He'd started seeing conspiracies where there were none and he was losing control of himself over totally implausible fears. Of course Hiashi didn't have anything planned for the exams. The only people who would be in it this year were his resident disappointment and possibly his nephew if he managed to make it in time. The older man probably had no more interest in it than where he would be seated and how much he'd be betting. Under the table, of course.

As the brown haired boy spotted an incoming speck that looked suspiciously like a messenger hawk, he inwardly sighed at the whims of fate.

* * *

"Red?" an orange garbed boy called out a little tiredly.

"You know you can't call me that, right?" Came the response from the woman sitting a little ways off with a book in her hands. She folded one of the pages in on itself and closed the book softly, looking up to face him.

"What?" The boy questioned, still trying to keep the correct posture as he limbered himself up. She'd said that all things mental they'd leave to the many groups of clones they had scattered around and they'd just focus on the physical. That meant strength, endurance, chakra capacity, flexibility and all the rest of the boring crap that he couldn't get from his clones. The one good thing was it left his mind free to think, but he didn't feel that it was anywhere near worth the sheer, mind numbing boredom of it all.

She spoke calmly as if she'd expected the answer. "Red is a colour. At some point you're going to have so many of those faceless ANBU that _one_ of them will need to be it." She looked to the side. "Also it's a terrible name."

He flopped onto the ground at the criticism and then exhaled into the dirt. He knew better than to challenge her at this point. She just seemed to think a lot of things through way better than he did. He pouted sulkily as he raised his chin to rest on the ground to ask his next question. "What would you rather be called then?"

"Ameyuri." She responded instantly. He blinked at that and she elaborated, waving the small book in his direction. "She's a master swordsman from Kiri." It clicked for him that the tiny book was one of those bingo books he would've been able to buy if….He shook his head and moved on.

"Why her?" He questioned, not understanding his clones desire to take after some kunoichi from that village.

"She's a legendary kunoichi for her skill with a blade and her devastating control of lightning. She's not known for mercy or kindness or compassion." The female clone's voice was tinged with a familiar hint of hero worship as she spoke. "She's unapologetic about what she is and who she's always wanted to be. Nobody treats her as anything less than how she wants to be treated. No one...no one treats her different because she's a female." Her head gave a nod that she seemed wholly unaware of. "I want to be like that."

He looked off to the side a little, honestly confused by the passion she had for this woman. "Okay, Ameyuri-chan." He decided it'd probably just be best to go with it. Wouldn't want her getting trigger happy with the shuriken again. "But…." He couldn't stop himself from questioning her when his sense of self preservation was overridden by curiosity. "But why?" She tilted her head to the side not understanding how he could possibly still not get it. "Um, no. I mean, why are you so…..different." He mentally patted himself on the back at the choice of words. It was pretty unlikely to get his head smashed in. He started to pick himself up off of the ground when his body began protesting the uncomfortable position.

She nodded to herself, having thought about it herself. "You mean why my personality is so different from yours." She intoned, and received a nod in response. "I'm not a hundred percent sure what the cause might be, but I have a theory." The golden haired boy nodded again despite himself. Her eyes softened at the innocent curiosity on his face. "You haven't had the most fun childhood." His head dipped a little at the reminder. "I remember how you spent so many hours alone, dreaming and wishing you could be someone else….. anyone else." He looked back at the face and she could see the pain he was trying so hard to hide from her. "I believe we are those people. I think our consciousnesses are the various collections of all those hours of daydreaming and fantasizing."

He nodded once. It _seemed_ like a solid enough theory. He did remember fantasizing long ago about being one of the women that all the men couldn't take their eyes off of. He'd spent days just imagining himself into her life and thinking about how everyone would react. He'd basked in the love and adoration from his hallucinations and he'd felt his heart clench painfully every time he lost focus and the illusion faded. Returning to the life of the much hated Uzumaki Naruto had never been a pleasant experience.

The feeling of two small arms wrapping themselves around his waist broke him out of his thoughts and he looked down to see Tiny with her face buried into his stomach. "Tiny." He started, having not expected to see the girl back so soon. He stopped when he realised that she probably wasn't too fond of that name either. "Do you also want a different name?"

She nodded against him a little sadly. She hadn't wanted to tell him she didn't like the name in case it made him mad, or even worse, sad. But since he was asking…..

He exhaled loudly and asked. "What name would you like then?"

Her choosing to speak in a small voice and her position pressing her face against him made her words little more than a mumble.

"Come on." He stepped out of her hold and dropped down to one knee, becoming level with the small girl. "You gotta speak clearly if you want me to hear you." She had a blush on her cheeks and was looking at him with a little bit of nervousness in her eyes, not that the oblivious boy could tell. "Whad'ya wanna be called?"

"Um…..M-Maki-chan." She mumbled a little reluctantly and then rushed to blurt out, "B-but you can call me Imouto." she finished loudly.

His eyebrows rose at that and he questioned her, mostly out of curiosity. "You want me to be your nii-san?" She hesitated for a second and then nodded firmly, eyes shining with hope. The boy nodded and got to his feet, ruffling her hair affectionately. "You got it, Imouto-chan."

The girl smiled brightly under his hand and nodded happily. It wasn't _really_ what she wanted, but she knew he wasn't really ready for that yet. It wouldn't be long until he was so she could wait.

Ameyuri smirked at the way Maki pretty much had the orange academy dropout wrapped around her little finger. It wasn't hard to tell what the little girl was working towards and it amused her to no end to think about how the blonde would react when he found out. Speaking of finding out, she'd almost forgotten just what she'd sent the little girl to do in the face of all these distractions. "Maki-chan." She called.

The small girl turned to the older woman, suddenly being conscious of the fact that she'd been watching the exchange. The look on her face told her that she saw straight through her act and they'd be having words about it later.

"What did you manage to find out from the schools?"

The girl blinked, having almost forgotten about why she'd come here in the first place. "Oh. Well, there are three schools here. I, um, I kinda enrolled in one already." A raised eyebrow from the older female had her elaborating quickly. "Well, the teacher pretty much just assumed that that's exactly what I was there to do and he made a file for me." Ameyuri didn't miss the way the small girl's eyes darted to the side when she'd said the last part. "He pretty much created my backstory for me and he said that lots of people come for the festival and then decide to permanently move here, only to move away a couple of months down the line." Her small shoulders rose and fell in a nonchalant shrug. "I just thought it'd be best for me to go to school since we're gonna be staying here for a while."

Ameyuri nodded in acceptance, already thinking up several backstories for the other clones that would soon be enrolling in the two other schools. "What else did you learn?"

The little girl gave a small frown at the sad truth she'd learnt. "Well, since there was just a festival here, loads of people left with a whole bunch of money and other stuff." Ameyuri's face blanched at the implications but predictably, Naruto's stayed intently curious about her story. "Apparently it always attracts a bunch of bandits and it's really not safe to be anywhere near here right now." She finished sadly knowing what would happen to anyone unlucky enough to get caught by them.

Naruto's eyes darkened at the information but he didn't speak out. He knew now that he didn't have the best handle on the situation so he looked to the one person who did. She had her eyes closed softly, glasses grasped between two fingers as she muttered quietly to herself. After a few minutes went by she opened her eyes and looked at Naruto, giving him a slight nod to acknowledge his improvement. "Make a thousand clones. Women and children mostly, but include a few men here and there." She watched on silently as he went to fulfil her request, flooding the clearing with orange and yellow. He looked a little worn by the effort and took a seat on the grass.

She stood from her position and did a rough headcount, nodding when she noted that he'd made about the right amount. As they started to Henge though, she had to spend a couple of minutes making sure he made them believable and not all the same. In the end they had a massive group of large families, each with many children and a single patriarch. It was almost a certain thing that the bandits wouldn't be able to resist them.

"Alright!" Ameyuri yelled, speaking to the group at large. "Time to go out and get yourselves captured by some bandits!" The groups didn't seem all to shocked by the order, but the women and children huddled together 'fearfully' for dramatic effect. It made the dark haired woman pause and almost made her reconsider the plan…..until she remembered they were clones. "Don't kill them when you meet them, let them take you to their base. From there you'll be able to free other survivors and wipe them out!" She saw a multitude of nods in the sea of ordinary looking families. "One thing to note, if there's any mention of an upcoming slave trade, don't annihilate the camp until you know the location! Understood?!"

The loud reply came as a chorus of many voices. "Yes sir!"

"Move out!" The thundering of a thousand pairs of feet wasn't the sound that followed. What could actually be heard was near silence as a thousand ninja trained civilians swiftly darted out of the clearing and towards the main roads. Ameyuri smiled a little at that and turned to the mostly recovered boy in the clearing. "Resting time's over." She intoned cooly, taking a little pleasure at the way he sprung to his feet almost instantly. "Back to work."

* * *

Hanabi looked up from her calligraphy at the sound of someone announcing themselves at her door. She could tell by the voice that it was her silver haired servant turned informant, but she couldn't for the life of her figure out why. ' _Does he want me to fulfil the favour already?_ ' She wondered, but felt it was pretty unlikely given that she'd be the head of the clan soon enough and, by then, the favour will be worth many orders of magnitude more.

She rose from her cushion and padded over to the door, byakugan briefly flaring to life to look perform a quick scan. Deeming it safe, she slid the thin paper door off to the side and gestured for him to enter. It wasn't ideal for him to be seen in his room, but they had nothing to discuss that should be overheard.

Closing the door after him, she turned and returned to her seat, gesturing for him to take the one across from her. Once he was settled, she nodded for him to speak. "Hanabi-sama, I would like to take you up on that favour you owe me."

The small girl nodded, face not expressing any of the surprise she felt at the statement. "What is your request?"

The old man stroked his chin and nodded to her, a pleased smile playing on his lips. "Well done, Hanabi-sama. Very well done indeed." He gained a smirk. "So Hiashi-sama _has_ been teaching you well indeed." He nodded to himself in affirmation. "That was a very well executed response, you barely acknowledged your debt and you make it as if you are the one with power by making whatever I say a request. You are a much better choice for a clan head than that sister of yours. You should be proud."

The pale eyed girl nodded her acknowledgement of the praise, face remaining stony and unmoved. The aged Hyuuga smiled once more at this and nodded again at the fact that she hadn't even given an inch. His flattery hadn't caused her to give any ground and still held all the power in the situation. ' _Very good indeed._ '

"What I want is simple. I want what's best for the Hyuuga. I want our name to be uplifted and not dragged through the mud as some people are wont to do." She nodded her head, having an idea of who he was referring to as his face soured. "Your sister, Hinata-kun, is a constant blemish on the pride of the Hyuuga, and I fear branding her wouldn't be the best course of action for the clan."

"Elaborate." She intoned, not even raising an eyebrow to show the question on her face.

"You want to bring change to the Hyuuga family." He intoned instead, waiting for her to nod before continuing. "Having her support you from her place as an older sibling while unbranded would make it significantly easier to gain the favour of the cadet branch." His shoulders rose and fell in a controlled shrug. "They adore her." Experienced as he was, he could somewhat see through her mask and could tell that she was unconvinced, so he continued. "Also, civilians have also been weary to trade with us partially due to the so called barbaric use of the curse seal. The cadet branches'...animosity towards the main branch could easily be pacified by their love of the heir if the seals are to be removed."

Hanabi nodded once in understanding. Her biggest hangup about Hinata's goal was the bloodbath that was sure to break out when the cadet branch members were suddenly free of the constant threat of death hanging over them. "What is your suggestion." She intoned, making sure to maintain her control of the conversation.

The old man smiled proudly once more. "I am worried that your sister will not be up to the task. Things that've happened recently have greatly affected the girl and I fear that she may lack the strength to overcome them, let alone be the familiar pillar the cadet branch needs." He resisted the urge to shift slightly under her scrutiny. "I propose a…..contingency, of sorts. A ….trade, if you will." He looked straight into her unflinching pupiless eyes, seeing the comprehension in the large orbs. "Your thirteen year old girl, for mine."

She closed her eyes for a few seconds, the sound of their breathing being the only thing in the room. A few seconds went by as she thought over the proposition, mulling over the seemingly flawless plan. "You want Momo-san to take Hinata's place as my older sister and act as the pillar for the cadet branch." She finally said, opening her eyes and seeing him nod once. "When?"

"As soon as possible. Team assignments are on monday, and if she comes home acting slightly strange it wouldn't be seen as anything out of the ordinary. Also, it would be best to get her out when she hasn't yet made any impressions on her team or her sensei." He replied. "You'd have to train Momo-chan in everything ninja and Hinata related over the course of the weekend."

The clan heiress was displeased by that. She knew that the swap would have to happen as soon as possible to avoid suspicion, but she hadn't known that she'd have to start from scratch in the girl's training. "Momo-san has no ninja training at all?"

The old man nodded sadly. "My daughter and her husband have no desire for such things and I have no training, myself. My daughter is trained as a shinobi, actually she was guarding the clan library when Hinata-kun decided to get that information, but she doesn't want the same for Momo-chan." He looked a little pained. "Her mother died in service of the main branch."

The little girl nodded once having expected as much. "And the seal?"

"Oh, don't worry about that. Kõ can remove it, and apply one to Hinata." ' _For once his overprotectiveness is_ actually _good for something._ ' The boy had studied seals like a man possessed when he noticed that his charge was in love with the jinchuuriki with the hope that if they ever dated, she'd be able to suppress him if anything went wrong. The dark haired man was a mother hen if ever there was one.

Hanabi nodded, having expected him to have someone already in mind. It was unheard of to approach someone with an incomplete plan, after all. "I see." She said, gesturing to the door. "Send Momo-san in as soon as possible. There is much to be done." The old man smiled once more at the way she'd avoided acknowledging both his allocation of work to her and the fact that she'd be doing some grunt work. ' _Oh yes, in a few years she'll make a fine clan head._ '

* * *

 **AN: Well, It's been a lot longer than three weeks. My bad.**

 **Anyway, please let me know what I can do to the summary to make the story more interesting.**

 **Also, I'm sorry if it's starting to read like 'The Hyuuga Chronicles' or something like that, but there just aren't many other people who've been affected yet. They're the only ones really doing anything different from canon. Well, there's Danzou and Hiruzen, but that's for the next one.**

 **Anyway, I'd really like to get your opinion on this chapter, and it'd be awesome if you could take a look at my other stories and tell me what you think of them as well.**

 **Later.**


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